.300 Ackley Magnum

MontanaRifleman said:
You just never know if they will match. The best thing to do is make a casting of the chamber and check the dimensions or send the casting to RCBS.
Click to expand...


+1

The other option is to send the die maker a fired case if you have one.

The chances of finding a die set are slim and as mentioned may not be the same as your chamber.

The rifle is worth the cost of a custom die set and if you ever want to sell it you can get a lot more for it with the dies.

Mine are Wilsons and the #3 is stamped on the dies.

J E CUSTOM
 
J E Custom said:
+1

The other option is to send the die maker a fired case if you have one.

The chances of finding a die set are slim and as mentioned may not be the same as your chamber.

The rifle is worth the cost of a custom die set and if you ever want to sell it you can get a lot more for it with the dies.

Mine are Wilsons and the #3 is stamped on the dies.

J E CUSTOM
Click to expand...
I don't sell guns. I just buy more. :D

I'll have to see if I can get my smith to order me a set of dies, after I get that barrel from him. I already have a set of .300 Wby neck-sizer dies...Can I just use those? Or would the taper and shoulder of the .300 Ackley #3 be too wide to fit in there without pushing the walls or neck in?
 
Oh yeah! Just scored a set of CH Tool & Die .300 Ackley dies on eBay for an awesome price. Now all I need is a donor-action (which I should be getting tomorrow afternoon), a BDL bottom metal setup, and a recoil lug, and my .300 Ackley build will begin soon. :D
 
Well...My rifle is done, and at my house. There ends the good news...

Now for the bad news... My CH dies I scored on eBay are in-fact .300 Ackley dies, but are not cut to my chamber's specs. Apparantly they were cut to someone else's specs back in the 1950's when they were made. So, I'll probably just store them and keep them as a keepsake failure waste of $70... Those are a couple of expensive paperweights...

And now the money begins... I'm going to have Redding make me a sliding sleeve (based on a fire-formed cartridge from my chamber), so I can use my Redding Comp Bushing die for neck-sizing fired cases. But I still have to have a complete set of custom dies made, which is NOT gonna be cheap, or quick. And the sad part is I need dies, like yesterday...
 
They are older hardened heat-treated dies...But if he can do it, and it's nowhere bear the price of custom dies, and he can do it in a timely fashion, I will definitely go that route!

Thanks Pro!
 
The 300 Ackley Mag is basically a 300 WBY with the curves ironed out, I like that concept a lot more than the venturi design, not that it makes any difference ballistically...

Ackley himself stated "Loading data is same as for the .300 Weatherby" in his book "Handbook For Shooters and Reloaders" (my copy of the book is an original 2nd printing 1963 , I also have his vol.2 1st printing 1966)

you should not have any problems obtaining reloading info, every single reloading manual has 300 WBY data......


here's a pic I took for ya from the book ..... his take on the 300 Impoved Magnum Ackley


........................
 

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For custom dies try Whidden. I sent a reamer print and 4 weeks later I had my dies. Much faster and cheaper than Jones. I got a mirco-seater and bushing full length die set and it ran just over $250.
 
Got some .300 Ackley brass formed up and loaded for ladder-testing tomorrow. Still waiting on my new Nosler .300 Wby brass for forming, but this old .300 Wby brass should hold out another firing or 2. Also got a bunch of .30-06 brass loaded for fire-forming to .30-06 AI. And got some Nosler brass to form for my 7mm STW. It will be a nice full afternoon at the range tomorrow. :thumbsup:

.300 Ackley w/ Berger 210 VLD's.

917D036F-D292-48D6-B037-4A975AC2507F_zpspfnkhmvy.jpg

E03113DA-E460-46FC-B60E-E1426865C0A0_zpsz8dfna1u.jpg
 
None yet...Summer came around and it gets too hot down here to do much of anything. We get about 6 months of summer down here...It's borderline tropical, too. If it ain't hot and humid, it's hot and raining.

Now that fall is here I'm gonna get out to the range soon and finish load development for it, and Chrono my final load I settle on.
 
J E Custom said:
Actually PO Ackley built 3 different 300s They were called oddly enough the 300#1, 300#2 and the 300 #3 the number 3 was the largest of the three.

He was experimenting with trying to find out what it would take to overbore the cartridge and the point of diminishing returns.

There is a book on PO Ackley that talks about all three 300s.

I had the #3 300 and made my brass out of the 300 H&H brass. and as mentioned earlier the 300 Weatherby. I stopped shooting it because it became a collectors rifle because Ackley himself had built mine (It is a piece of art).

When he built the #3 he said it was to over bore and inefficient. (I wonder what he would say
about some of todays cartridges). The #1 was the shortest and had a powder capacity of just
under 70 grains. the #2 was lengthened just enough to re chamber a 30/06 without setting the chamber back. it had a powder capacity of 70 to 75 grains. The #3 has almost the same case capacity as the 300 Weatherby (around 80 grains of powder capacity).

I hope this helps you to determine which one you have.

J E CUSTOM
Click to expand...

was going to say two .300's, but your right. Plus there's yet another one built off the .348 case, and is pretty much the samething as the .300WSM.
gary
 
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